New residence rules for Ukrainians in Norway. Government specifies required income

There are currently around 86,000 Ukrainians with valid collective protection living in Norway. The government announced that people who received this status no later than 16 September 2026 will be able to apply for another type of residence permit if they meet employment and income requirements. The new scheme will require an application. The first people are expected to be able to submit documents before next summer.

Minister of Labour and Integration Kjersti Stenseng stated that an appropriate level of income will be the basic condition. The government proposes a threshold of 2.8 or 3 G per year, with 1 G currently corresponding to NOK 136,549. This means NOK 382,337 or NOK 409,647 per year, respectively. The final level of required income has not yet been determined.

A person who meets the programme's conditions for three years will be able to establish grounds for applying for permanent residence, provided they also meet the remaining requirements. The authorities also envisage the possibility of granting a derivative permit to the spouse, partner and children of the working person. Candidates will also have to meet requirements concerning a clean criminal record. According to Stenseng, around 19,000 people already living in Norway may currently qualify for the new scheme.

The government also intends to extend temporary collective protection until the end of 2027. This also applies to people who are not working or do not meet the conditions of the new residence programme. Collective protection is granted for one year and may be extended for a maximum of five years. On its own, it currently does not provide grounds for obtaining a permanent residence permit.

The new scheme will cover only people who received temporary collective protection before 17 September 2026. People arriving from 17 September onwards are not covered by the government's proposal. According to data from the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI), there are around 86,000 Ukrainians with valid collective protection in the country. Data from Statistics Norway (SSB), meanwhile, indicate that around 48 per cent of displaced Ukrainians of working age were employed in July 2026, compared with 41 per cent a year earlier.

The proposal will now be sent for consultation, which is expected to last six weeks. The government assumes that the first applications can be submitted before next summer, with processing set to begin in the summer. Stenseng also stressed that people who remain unemployed will still be covered by collective protection, which, according to the authorities' announcement, will not end next year.